16 and 21. But we’re going to be looking at the life of Abraham, God’s calling on him as we look at God’s faithfulness in his life. We look through the reading of God’s word if you would join with me in prayer. Well, Lord, we do ask that you would shed your light upon us, that being rid of the darkness of our hearts, that we may come into the true light, which is Christ, who is the light of the world, who lives and who reigns with in the unity of the Holy spirit, one God, world without end. Amen. Genesis 16, if you’re not aware, the name Sari and Sarah, there’s a name change that takes place, the same person. Now, Sari, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abraham, ‘Behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. ‘Go into my servant, it may be that I shall obtain children by her. ‘ And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abraham had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abraham’s wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abraham, her husband, as a wife.
And he went to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abraham, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant your embrace. ‘ When When she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. ‘May the Lord judge between you and me. ‘ But Abraham said to Sarah, ‘Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. ‘ Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. Genesis 21. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time in which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me.
And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? And I have borne him a son in his old age. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. From the Book of Hebrews 11, a very familiar verse. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It’s where we choose to believe even what we don’t see. We are talking about trusting in God, and we have good reasons to trust him even when we don’t see how following him is always going to work out. Walking by faith and not by sight is the heart of discipleship. For every one of us, for every generation, there will be what seems like a reasonable alternative to fulfilling God’s particular call in our life that tries to bypass the faith part. We say things like, I will make it happen. I will achieve my desires and my dreams. I will make heaven on Earth, or at least in my corner of it. That’s always been the temptation. It’s always been a fool’s errand. As followers of Jesus, we do not say, I will obey, if. As followers of Jesus, we take our hands off of our life.
Not my will be done, but yours. The Lord alone will accomplish his purpose, and we must receive from him his efforts and not work on our own. A quick summary of where we have been. From the perfection and the wonder of Genesis 1 and 2, something unexpected and unlookful came into paradise, a serpent, a dark shadow. And in Genesis 3, man ruins this perfect creation. Even while Adam and Eve were hiding from God, it’s the Lord who sought them out. It was the Lord who provided for them coverings, animal skins. We see the The first introduction of animal sacrifice into creation, the life of another, providing covering for shame and guilt. Then in Genesis 3: 15, we have this proclamation of the gospel in seed form, where God is speaking a curse to the serpent. He says, I will put emity, hatred between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This seed of God’s redemption is planted in the very soil of sin at the Garden of Eden. From there, two groups emerge, those that follow the Lord and those that do not.
We saw in Genesis 4, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain. Then a little further, we read in Genesis 6, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But grace and mercy were still present. The Lord provides a way of preservation through Noah and the Ark, even though the floodwaters wiped everything out. The great preservation of humanity. Noah comes from the Ark. He hears the wonderful promises of the Lord to all mankind. He looks up, he sees the rainbow in the sky, a sign of God’s covenant promise, his great preservation. Three verses later, Noah is making wine and is passed out drunk. God is going to have to provide a way for us because even the very best of us don’t measure up. Then we come to Abraham. Joshua, in Joshua 24, there the Lord gives us a little synopsis of what’s going to take place. The Lord says, Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates River. Terah, the father of Abraham, and there they served other gods. Terah, his two sons, including Abraham, served other gods.
Then I took your father, Abraham, from beyond the river and led them to the land of Canaan. And that’s where we come in, in Genesis 12, and this great call of Abraham from the Lord. He tells him, Go from your country, from your kindred, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. God calls Abraham to step out in faith and go where he sends him. And Abraham is 75 years old. And this beautiful promise is given. And what we’re going to see, though, shortly is that while this promise is there, Abraham and Sarah are going to opt for plan B. It’s taking a while for this to come about. And so they’re going to work at getting the gift. Very opposite of what they should be doing. And in the end of chapter 11, we get this small little side note. It says, Now, Sarahi was barren. She had no child. So that’s setting the stage even before the call is given to Abraham.
In chapter 15 and chapter 17, God appears to Abraham. Again, he speaks of this covenant that he will make with him. He reaffirms his promises, the land, the people, or rule over all this. But in chapter 15, Abraham’s starting to wander. Hey, God, just a little reminder here. You haven’t given me the kid part of this yet. Then God tells him, Abraham, look up at the stars. As many as you see and beyond, so your descendants shall be, and I’m going to give you all of this land. That’s the promise. And then we hear again, God tells him that this is what’s going to take place, the great promise of God to Abraham. But in verse 16, of chapter 16, verse 3, it tells us that 10 years have gone by. That’s not a small number when you’re 75. And 10 years have gone by, and so Abraham and Sarah now opt for a different approach. It’s the God helps those who help themselves approach. So you’re aware that’s not actually a scripture reference. It actually comes out of Esop’s fables. Hercules helps those who help themselves. It’s funny the number of people who repeat this back as if it’s a scripture.
God helps those who help themselves. No, that’s not right. And we read, Now, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said to Abraham, behold, now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my servant, and maybe I shall obtain children by her and Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah. Now, don’t forget, Sarah was an interval part of God’s promise. The promise to Abraham is to Abraham and Sarah. It wasn’t just Abraham and anybody he could find to make this work. It was to him through Sarah. She is old and she can’t see how any of this is going to happen. She steps in with a culturally viable alternative. Verse 3, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abraham, her husband, as a wife. And he went to Hagar and she conceived. And when she saw that she conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Well, this plan wasn’t working so well now. You’ll know everywhere in scripture polygamy is mentioned. It ends in relational chaos and brokenness. But this was a culturally viable alternative.
That you’d have a second wife, from the maid of the first one even, and that that child would be reckoned in some way as Sarah’s. But great contempt comes out of this. So much so, verse 5, Sarah says to Abraham, ‘May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she conceived, she looked with me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me. But Abraham said to Sarah, ‘Behold, your servant is in your power. Do to her as you please. ‘ Then Sarah dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. Way to step up to the plate, Abraham. He had opted for plan B, and it didn’t work so well. He just sits passively by and allows his son, Ishmael, and his new wife, Hagar, to be chased Just so you’re aware, that’s bad. Sometimes we read in scripture events that happen, and scripture is not saying it endorses it, it’s saying this is what happened. Not providing for your son and your new wife is not being faithful to the family that God has given you. What Abraham’s doing is just, Well, that didn’t work, and letting it go, trying to free himself of his responsibility and trying to maintain peace in his home with his wife.
The Lord has to intervene to save them and Hagar and Ishmael come back. It’s the Lord who watches over the care that Abraham should have been extending. And this plan B blew up because it wasn’t God’s plan. It was plan. God’s plan A was receiving the gift, not working to make it happen on their own strength. Abraham is now 99 years old. He owns no land. He has no child with Sarah. The Lord comes again to him in Genesis 17. It’s time to change the names from Sarah to Sarah, and Abraham to Abraham. That name change for both of them, it speaks of there being parents of many descendants. That’s the extra. It’s speaking that he’s being the father and she’s going to be the princess of many. God tells him, Sarah is going to have a son. Then Abraham did just what everybody would do. When God comes and gives his promise, he’s telling you you’re going to fulfill it. It said, Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He said, Shall a child be born to a man who’s 100? Shall Sarah, who’s 99, bear a child? God is the one who has the last laugh.
He tells him, I’m giving you a son, and you’re going to name him Isaac, which means in Hebrew, he laughs. His own name is going to bear testament to God fulfilling his promises, even to a laughing man who doesn’t see how this is going to happen. In chapter 18, he says, This time next year, you will ‘I have a son. ‘ And when he comes this time to tell Abraham this, Sarah was listening at the tent behind him and said, So Sarah laughed and said to herself, ‘after I’m worn out and my Lord is old, shall I have this pleasure? ‘ Both Abraham and Sarah laughed. The promise seemed ludicrous to them. Their age and her bearerness were undeniable and unmovable realities. The promised son was predicted twice, and the fulfillment is mentioned twice. Chapter 21, The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. In scripture, when it says God visits someone, it’s an indication of special interest. Sometimes it’s for judgment, but here it’s for blessing. It’s intentional. God is intentionally blessing her, coming to her. Verse 2, Sarah conceived and bore Abraham, a son, in his old age.
This has been said so many times. The third time it’s mentioned, because the point is, it’s a miracle. There’s no way this is going to happen on their own. God is the one who’s intervening. And Abraham called the name of his son, Isaac. He laughs. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me, and everyone who hears will laugh over me. Not talking about a disgrace, you’re talking about a joyful thing. Everyone’s going to be excited. This is good news to share. A laugh of disbelief turned into a laugh of joy. And now it gives the neighbors a good laugh, too. Appreciate. One writer put it this way. He said, laughter is a biblical way of receiving a newness which cannot be explained. The newness is sheer gift, underrived, unwarranted, because barrenness had become ludicrous. It can now be laughed at because there is full joy. Joy. And it goes on in verse 7, Sarah said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? And the answer, of course, is no one, Sarah. No one would have said this. And she says, Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.
Her own shame in that culture of the time, bearing children was everything. Has been removed. The promise of God has been fulfilled. The Lord waited 25 years to fulfill this promise. Now, on our good days, we’d like to think that we could have done better than Abraham. Somewhere in our heart, we say, I wish God would come to me and lay out his promises in my life. Now, if God would just come and do that, if he would just tell me what’s going to take place, there’s no way I would have doubted like Abraham did. Abraham was a great man of faith, but he was still an ordinary person like us. What we see in Abraham is God’s faithfulness to his promise, not Abraham’s. Nothing is beyond God’s reach, and God is not in a hurry. This beautiful fulfillment of this promise, God, from the very start of the fall, promising what he is going to bring for future redemption. And this man and his wife are an integral part of this. Everything seems so wonderful and good. But then there’s this chapter that comes a little later, the very next one. Genesis 22. We’re given one of the most dramatic stories of the Bible.
It seems that God puts everything in jeopardy. In chapter 22, God says to Abraham, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall tell you. Now, that word son is used 13 times in just a few verses. Your only son, mentioned three times, the you love. If you’re familiar with the story, you know the outcome. The Lord spares Abraham and provides a ram for the sacrifice. Now, there are so many questions that we have with this. But one commentator, he puts it well, though. He said, The problem of this narrative is to hold together and embrace both the dark command of God and his high promise. Now, we feel that tension, not just here, but in our lives. The promises that we have of God and the dark tensions that are there from things around us that we don’t understand. That we puzzle over, grieve over, lament over. We are caught in this tension just like Abraham was. Now, this account is not about, now go and sacrifice your Isaac like Abraham did, and the Lord will do what he does.
No, this is not a story about just an individual doing this great act of faith. This is a story connected to the story. Abraham is asked by God to do something reprehensible, repugnant, to sacrifice his son. And ultimately, the big picture is going to have to wait 2,000 years to be completed. For we see that what the Lord is asking of Abraham was not something that he was unwilling to do himself for his son. But it’s going to take 2,000 years. This is part of being God’s people. You’re looking at this going, Well, that’s an amazing thing. I don’t really understand why it all took place. It’s a great test of faith, but wow, you don’t get to sacrifice the son part. This is because God paints over a very large canvas that goes throughout human history. We have the advantage point of looking back to see all the dots connected like, Oh, yeah, that all makes sense. But if you’re part of it for the first time, you’re this a head scratcher God. I don’t understand what all is taking place. It takes 2,000 years for this fulfillment to come together. Paul reminds us in Romans 8, If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own son, but gave himself up for us, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? The only begotten son, the one whom God said, This is my son whom I love. He’s the true sacrifice, which Isaac just pointed to, that God provided for Abraham, for Isaac. And his provision is his son. Adam fell at a tree, and by a tree we’re saved through Jesus, the second Adam. Isaac carried the wood of his sacrifice on his own back, and Jesus carried the wood of his sacrifice on his own back. These are not lost details. The Lord faithfully provides for the promise that he has made. From Genesis to Revelation, God has revealed his great plan of redemption from start to finish. The Lord must prove faithful if any of this is going to be accomplished. It has to be through God. The good news is that the very best of us have failed miserably, and that God has promised to continue his grace and mercy through the person and work of his son, Jesus. Abraham ended his days after receiving tremendous promises, descendants, and land, and rule over all these things.
Abraham died, and the only plot of ground that he owned in the promised land was a cemetery, the cave at the field of Mephila. That’s all he owned in the land of promise. And look at the stars and the number in the Lastness of them, he had a son, Isaac, who that promise was attached to. One son. Land as far as you can see. No. Abraham got a down payment, and he trusted that God would bring about the rest. And what Abraham received in part would have to wait a very long time for God’s plan to be fulfilled, and that would be another appearing and another son of promise. But that has implications for us. Pastor Ray Orland, put it this way, I think it’s in your bulletin as well, but he gives us this counsel. He says, Stop praying, Lord, I want you to make my life better. Stop praying, Lord, I want you to make my husband, my wife better. I want my children to behave. I want an ideal job. Because when you You pray that, you can only end up frustrated because God will not subordinate himself to any human agenda.
Think about Abraham and the promises that he heard. He had to give up his agenda. God would not subordinate himself to Abraham’s vision of how the fulfillment should take place. There was never a plan B for God. How often do we do that? God, this is the only way your promises can be fulfilled in my life. It’s the only way that I can see. Then we say to ourselves or maybe out loud, I deserve better than this. I deserve better, fill in the blank. I deserve better kids, a better spouse, better education. I deserve more respect. I shouldn’t have to put up with this stuff. God, where are you at? Why is this taking place? You are not providing for the promises I think I deserve in the way that I deserve them. That’s the heart of it for us. Orton, he finishes out this little counsel, and he said, Start praying. Lord, I just want you to be God to me. I want my life with my problems to show the world that you save sinners. We subordinate our agendas to his. I just want you to be God to me. My life, with all of its problems, declares to the world that you save sinners because I am a wonderful example of a terrible thing.
That the glory and the Majesty of God is highlighted in the lives of his very broken and sinful people. However the Lord brings it, he will fulfill. He will provide, he He will resurrect in the end. But he is the one who gets to determine what that looks like. The author and the finisher of our faith weave together the story that spans thousands of years. In his beautiful plan of redemption, he has woven us into this fabric. He has called us by name before the foundations of the world that we would be the wonder and the joy of his creation. It’s not a mistake, but a well thought through plan of redemption. God has always had plan A in mind. And yes, we carry then the tension of those dark moments with those high promises. I don’t know how they all fit together, but I don’t have to. We can hear God calling us to go wherever he leads, and we stop trying to force it to happen. We stop saying, I will obey if, and we simply, not my will, but your will be done. And along the way, it’s super easy to try to compare to somebody else’s plan.
You can look at somebody out there and you can go, I think they got a better deal than I did. They have better whatever. But you can also look at somebody else and go, I don’t want their life. That’s a mess. You get your life. You get the life that God has given to you. It is sufficient for the master to bring from that an amazing and beautiful portrait of his grace and his mercy in the fulfillment of all his promises. We are that. That’s the good news of Jesus. We see from the very brokenness of sin and rebellion in mankind in Genesis 3, all the way to the personal work of Jesus, and now coming to the end of Revelation, we see this overview of all human history, and we are a part of it. Each person, each generation has a temptation to take some viable way, it seems, to get out of this, a way that people around or the culture will approve of to fulfill this promise. It’s a fool’s errand. God’s not going to allow us to do a plan B to substitute our agenda. They’re like, Well, I guess that works out, too.
No, he’s going to take us to the place that he wants for it. It almost always is a complete surrender. Not always. It is always the surrender of ourselves to him. We lay everything out. God, just be God to me. Use my life with all this problems to show the that you save sinners. There is so much joy and freedom there. You see people who are so bound up in themselves and their agenda and their desires, and they’re so miserable. The gospel is about freedom, about joy in that, so that even in those circumstances, and they’re hard, don’t hear me try to minimize any terrible circumstance. They are hard, but there is joy to be found in them because it is Christ who has led us there for the purposes that he has in us. That is what sets us free. That is the faithfulness of God amidst a generation of faithless people. We can confess that as sin and comment and worship him and enjoy him and love one another really well, even if they should differ on a point or two. Pray with me. Father God, we just say thank you. Thank you for how you have kept your faithful promises from one generation to the next.
And Lord, how you will continue until you bring your son at his return. And Lord, with Jesus, we simply cry out that you would keep us faithful to the end. Father, that we indeed would be testaments of your gracious mercy. And Father, we do confess we struggle with submitting our agenda to you. We struggle, Father, wanting to obey conditionally. We ask that you would forgive us. And Father, set us free from ourselves. Fill us with your spirit that he would lead and guide us, Father, into joy unspeakable that there would be laughter in our hearts because you fulfill your word. We bless you, Father, Son, and spirit. One God forever. Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.